They Take It In Turns
by Shadow-ofthe-Night35
Summary: They did that, siblings. They took care of each other. Above everything, they took care of each other. And if taking care of each other meant Drifting together, you had better believe Simon would do whatever it took to make that happen.


A/N: Let's put it this way: This story is all Sarah's ( .com) fault and she better appreciate what I go through for her. The violence warning is more for part two than this part. Come on, they're piloting a Jaeger, there has to be violence.

Disclaimer: I own nothing. Except maybe Noctiluca Still. Even that is doubtful.

**They Take It In Turns**

**Part One**

"I hate to leave," Simon gritted through clenched teach. River almost detached, trying to get to him, wanting to get to him, but knowing that if she left Noctiluca, that monster out there would...

"You won't," she replied, "You take care of me, Simon." He looked up at her, his expression pained. "You've always taken care of me," she corrected herself. This Drift filled up around her with memories of all the times Simon had taken care of her, from the time he helped her up when she'd fallen as a baby learning to walk to the times he put her on helicopters inland, from the times he soothed her bruises from training to the times had held her when she couldn't sleep because of the nightmares. All of this flickered through her mind in less than a second and she looked at him, right arm dangling uselessly, his side bleeding heavily around the shrapnel, halfway out of alignment, and almost out of the Drift. She smiled. "My turn."

.

Simon looked out over the training bay from his tiny window in the infirmary. He sighed, catching sight of River's long dark hair swinging around her as she danced and wove about the other trainees. He had put her on a helicopter this morning. And of course, just like always, she was already back. She would never stay away from the front. She would never stay safe.

He could relate to the feeling. When the first attack had happened, years ago now, he had been shocked, then horrified, then determined. When the Jaeger Project was announced, he had made his way to the first Shatterdome on his own, hitchhiking half of the way, and once he got there, begging them to let him help. To let him heal them. It was all he could do.

They had been more than happy to take in the young doctor, though secretly, the Marshal thought he was wasted here. There were hospitals inland, expensive places where only the newest and greatest medical technology was used. But Simon insisted that this was where he could do the most good, and Marshal Reynolds was not about to turn away a man who actually knew how to stitch a wound. And Simon always had wounds to stitch, if not from kaiju attacks then from training.

River had showed up a week after he did, waving from the passenger seat of a supply truck, beaming up at the giant jaegers and making friends with the pilot candidates before anyone even knew she was there. Reynolds had been less than thrilled with the idea of taking in his younger sister, and Simon had promised to send her home to Osiris, a city well within the two hundred mile radius that was suggested as a minimum safe distance. His parents had moved inland at the first hint of trouble and had not budged. Nor had they helped to relocate anyone else to the inland areas, but that was an argument Simon had vowed to fight on another day. A day when he wasn't up his his elbows in blood after yet another jaeger had been practically ripped to shreds in an attack. They had successfully defended the city but...there was a cost. There was always a cost.

And it was because of this cost that he knew he could not let River do exactly what she was desperate to do. She had stuck around, tagged along, and no matter how many times he sent her home, she always, always found a way back. Sometimes he wondered if she ever left, or just got off the helicopter as soon as he turned his back. But he had watched the last one take off, had seen her waving at him from the window as the machine rose into the air. And yet, here she was. Sparring.

He finished washing his hands, made sure his patient was still sleeping under the influence of anesthesia and pain from broken ribs and left the med bay. He stood along the wall of the training room, watching with a few others as his sister finished a round, her stick coming to a silent, threatening rest a perfect inch away from her opponent's neck. It earned her a round of applause. He just crossed his arms and frowned. She smiled as she helped her opponent to her feet and laughed as she said, "Damn, well...maybe next time." River turned and caught sight of Simon's thunderous face and her smile dropped off her face. She bowed to the training sergeant and followed Simon as he stalked away.

"Simon?" she tried in the hallway, but he said nothing until they were in his room. She cast a longing glance at her room across the hall, but Simon closed the door. "You're going to yell at me again, aren't you?" she asked, sitting on the edge of his bed. He sighed as he sat down in his desk chair, shifting a pile of paperwork to do so. She picked up a file off his bed, closed it gently, and set it on top of the stack.

"No," he said quietly. "I'm not going to yell at you, River, I'm just..." he paused. "I'm never really angry, you know that, right?" She nodded. "I'm scared."

"Well, how do you think I feel?" she asked, frowning. "You send me home like I'm some china doll that needs protecting, but I'm not and I don't. I can take care of myself. And if I can't, you will take care of me."

"That's what I'm trying to do, River," he said, exasperated. "I'm trying to take care of you by putting you as far from this war as possible."

"But I don't need that. I need..." She trailed off. They had had this conversation before. Several times. "I need to help. I can't just sit by and watch these horrible things happen. I need to stop them from happening."

Simon sighed. He knew exactly how she felt because he felt it, too. And he had watched her, he knew how strongly she needed to help, how important it was to her to use her intelligence to help the world. That was all she wanted. She had wormed her way into the hearts and minds of all those who worked in the Shatterdome, from the Marshal on down and she was so close. She had trained and she had tested; she had the best simulator score of anyone who had ever participated in the program. She had the highest number of spars, the highest number of hits per spar. They had never seen anything like it. But then...she always did love to dance. And what was fighting but elaborate, violent, dancing? At least, to a certain extent. Simon had watched her run through partner after partner, opponent after opponent, but there was never anyone compatible. Never anyone even remotely compatible. They had been searching for years to find someone who could possibly keep up with River's intelligence, grace, skill...they had searched through every corner of the world for someone even halfway compatible. But there was no one. How could there be?

Simon remembered a conversation he had had with Marshal Reynolds. It was a short conversation. After watching River spar against every new recruit in a batch of nearly twenty rookies, Reynolds had shaken his head, sighed, and River had bowed, tears in her eyes because she _knew_ there had been no one, and she had left for her room at a run. Simon had turned to Reynolds, who had looked at him, really looked at him and just said, "We need you in the med bay, son. We need your hands there. Not in a jaeger. We got hands for tearing crap apart. We need your hands to put them back together." And that was it. He had turned on his heel without another word, without even listening to what Simon had had to say, which was that if anyone would possibly be compatible with River it was him, and that he could do it, for her, he could do it. For her, he could do anything.

He sighed, pulling himself back to the present as River played with the folder on the top of the stack. She sighed, too, knowing there was no point in continuing the conversation, knowing it would just end up with them both getting angry.

"Do you need help with the files?" she asked. "You fell asleep over this one last night, didn't you?" She held up the one that had been splayed across his bed. "You should get a minion to do your paperwork. Not me. A different minion." He smiled.

"I'll manage," he said.

"You always do." She got up to leave, pausing at the door. "Simon?" she said, "Don't send me home, okay? I can't...I can't just sit there. I need to at least...if I can't fight, I can at least help the others learn and that's...something."

"Okay," he said. She smiled a sad smile and closed the door behind her. He sat back in his chair and glared at the stack of files he still had to fill out and update and shuffle through. He pulled one over to him, opening it and pretending to get to work on it. But his mind was elsewhere. His mind was with River, knowing that she was completely wasted where she was. Teaching new recruits, sparring with the others, keeping them in shape as they tried to beat her scores and match her training...that was all well and good, and–as she had said–it was something. But it was not enough. It was not enough for her and it was not enough for him. He couldn't sit and watch her anymore, watch her being less than what she could be. He sighed, shoved the file aside and went to the sparring room. When no one was looking, he picked up a staff and slipped back out. He found a deserted conference room, dusty and unused. Conferences were few and far between, particularly with Reynolds as Marshal. He shoved the table aside, stacked the chairs in the corner and glanced around, satisfied with the amount of room he had.

And then he went to work.

He worked for several weeks, months. He worked in tiny breaks between shifts in the med bay, he worked late at night when he was meant to be doing reports, he worked through lunch sometimes, though that was always a mistake. Training and working in the med bay meant skipping any food was a bad idea. But sometimes, if he had no other time, he did it anyway. For her.

He had watched the staff fights long enough to know the fifty-two positions of the Jaeger Bushido. He had healed enough of the cuts and bruises to know what to do. He had read the manuals, too, not that you could learn to fight from manuals. But he tried. And he succeeded. He asked his friends to help, mostly Derrial Book, an old Ranger who was retired from piloting but helped out in the med bay and stayed on as an advisor to the Marshal. Simon avoided asking Jayne Cobb for help, though he knew the big Ranger would have loved it–would have loved having the opportunity to put as many bruises on Simon as Simon had healed him of. Simon also asked Zoe Washburne, the Marshal's second in command, even though he'd been hesitant to do so. He knew she wouldn't tell on him, she wouldn't go running to the Marshal or anything like that, but there was an unspoken rule that everything had to have Reynolds' approval. Simon knew that his training would not even begin to have Reynolds' approval. He did it anyway, and he progressed magnificently once under Zoe's tutelage, sparring against Derrial in the disused conference room late at night for weeks on end.

Finally, about thee months and about ten kaiju attacks after he had begun, Zoe nodded and walked out of the room as he finished a bout with Derrial. The older man smiled and pushed Simon's staff away from his throat. "Well done, son," he said, and followed Zoe out of the room. They didn't need to say more. They knew he was ready, and he knew, too–deep down. He took a deep breath, unaccountably worried.

He caught the Marshal after dinner one night. Reynolds made a point to always eat with the crew, with the engineers, with the staff. He ate at a different table in the mess hall every night, but he always ate in the mess hall. Even when higher-ups visited–once, the commander of the entire Jaeger program–he still ate in the mess, and the visitors were left to look down on the mess from the windows of the Marshal's private dining room and wonder about Reynolds or join him in the mess at the tables with the ground staff or the welders or the doctors and have their conversations with not only the Marshal, but his people too. They always left with a new spark in their eye, a new view on life after they'd eaten with the men and women actually fighting the war, not just running it from behind a desk.

Reynolds was eating at the engineers' table that night, and even though Simon avoided the engineers with a burning passion because Frye was an engineer and he couldn't meet Frye's eye without blushing because, damn it but Kaylee was beautiful _and_ smart _and_ funny and he floundered when attempting to talk to her and so he avoided her all together, he made his way over to the engineers' table. Reynolds watched him coming with a curious look in his eye, and Simon had no idea that the Marshal was internally questioning the determined look on his most accomplished doctor's face or the way he walked with a new balance, that grace only found in fighters, that confidence he had been watching grow in Simon for the past three months and never commented on. Because if the boy wanted to learn how to fight, he wasn't going to stop him. He wasn't going to use those skills, but he wasn't going to stop him.

Simon took a deep breath as the Marshal raised his eyebrow to indicate that Simon should speak. Simon tried desperately to ignore the fact that Kaylee was smiling at him though a mouthful of strawberries–the last of the season, sent into the Shatterdome from far inland–and laughing at something one of her friends had leaned over to whisper to her.

"Marshal," Simon began. "I...have a favor to ask."

"Gathered that," Reynolds said, "considering you came all the way over here. What's up?"

"It's about my sister," Simon began. Reynolds sighed and took another bite of his dinner.

"We've been through this, Tam. Many times. Don't see what else I can do for the girl."

"She hasn't had a compatibility check in months," Simon said. "Sir, if you could just–"

"The reason she hasn't had a compatibility check is that no one is compatible with her," Reynolds said, talking over Simon. Kaylee–no, Engineer Frye–was frowning. Simon tried not to notice. "Tam, how many times do I have to tell you? She's just too damn good and too damn special. And I mean that in a good way. Drift compatibility is hard enough to come by. Why do you think there are so few Jaegers and we try so damn hard to keep their gorram pilots alive and running? Why do you think your job is so important? Do you honestly think that if I thought I could spare you I wouldn't have you in a Jaeger with that girl four years ago yesterday? I need you healing, and that's final."

"But sir, if you could just...give her one more try?"

"I thought you put that girl on a helicopter out of here?"

"Many times, sir. She always comes back. Even if you order her out and order the guards to stop her from coming in, do you honestly think that she wouldn't find a way? Do you honestly think that she could possibly be kept out of this place? She's...she just wants to help. And you're stopping her from helping in the best way she can."

"I'm not stopping her, Tam," Reynolds said. "I tried to help her. I tried to get her in a Jaeger and helping in this war. You know I tried. But there's only so much disappointment a person can take. And I don't want to put that girl though any more than she's already been through. What makes you think this crop of recruits will be any more compatible than the last dozen?"

"I don't know, I just..." Simon sighed, glancing over at the table of new recruits, who were watching the argument with hawk eyes and ears like bats. New recruits always watched the Marshal that closely their first few months in the Shatterdome. Commanding officers had that effect. Especially when they ate in the mess and didn't act like commanding officers. "There might be. There always might be. So why not try?"

Reynolds looked at Simon, really looked at him, just as he had all that time ago when he had told him flat out without Simon asking that there was no way he could spare him from the medical bay. But this time, the look in his eye softened, and he glanced over at River where she sat among the helicopter pilots, laughing and pointedly ignoring Simon. She was mad at him over some comment he had made earlier. She did that. Siblings, Reynolds thought. They fought and they loved each other and they fought some more but no matter what they protected each other. They helped each other. They took care of each other. Above everything they took care of each other. Simon clearly thought that the best way to take care of River was to keep giving her compatibility tests. To keep getting her hopes up only to have them dumped back down on their ass. Who was he to say that wasn't the best way for her to cope? Simon knew her far better than he did. Far better than anyone. Reynolds shook his head, hating that line of thought. He wanted that girl in a Jaeger more than anything else, and he knew his best chance was to get Simon in there with her, but he couldn't lose Simon's medical expertise. He couldn't lose the assurance that this man would be looking after his pilots when they came home injured. Simon had saved more than his fair share of lives. He had reattached a woman's leg for Christ's sake. He needed him in the med bay. He needed him keeping his pilots ready and fit and healthy and whole.

He needed River in a Jaeger, too. He needed her skill and her determination and her desperate need to help. He needed her intelligence and her analytical brain working out new ways to fight, new strategies, new tactics. He needed her on the battlefield, destroying these monsters as they came at her, showing the other pilots how it was really done. He needed her to win some real battles, not just simulations; he needed her to get the crew's hopes back up from where they'd sunk at the beginning of this endless fight against this terrifying enemy they all secretly thought they would not be able to beat. River honestly believed they could win this war. If she started winning, if she started doing it...the others would follow. The others would begin to believe too. And then maybe this burned out rock of a planet would be saved.

He sighed, and looked at Simon. He knew what the doctor was planning. It was impossible not to know, not to have watched him grow from being just a doctor to being a doctor who knew how to fight, who knew the moves, who knew the strategies. He'd read the manual, but it was more than that. Reynolds knew without Zoe telling him. And he sighed a third time because he had no choice. He had never had a choice. It was always going to come to this. It had finally come to this.

"Fine, damn it. Tomorrow. O-eight hundred." he picked a time he knew that Simon would not be on duty in the infirmary. He stood up, grabbing his dinner tray and moving toward the clean up crew. "Tell her. Don't be late."

Simon watched the Marshal's retreating back and couldn't help grinning. Kaylee caught his eye and smiled.

"Nicely done, Simon," she said, eating the last strawberry. He blushed and nodded, moving away. "You ever going to talk to me properly?" she asked behind him.

"No?" he said, turning to look back. She laughed.

"Maybe you will tomorrow."

"What makes you say that?"

"Nothing," she said. "I just think you'll be in a different mood tomorrow."

He shook his head, not wanting to figure out what she meant by that.

.


End file.
